This blog shares stories and photographs about outdoor travels in the Northwest.

Thursday, February 05, 2015

Winter Days, Doldrums and Familiar Detours

Winter Days, Doldrums and Familiar Detours

Tuesday, February 5, 2015

Morning fog looms thick enough to blur the houses across the street from my living room window.
That limits shooting finches and, juncos that pose periodically above the dangling feeder in the naked snowball bush that brushes the front porch.

Fog has persisted for days -- after a few bright days in January -- but it hangs especially dark and thick today, perhaps daring me to carry a camera when walking with Nora along Mill Creek this afternoon.
I worry about wet seeping into the camera and the big lens, especially the lens, on days like this. I ignored the wetness on a similar day once on the Oregon Coast and the stabilizing motor in the lens ground, whirred and clunked in obvious pain.
After several weeks, the internal workings calmed as they apparently dried.
So, this may be a good day for a break.
That may be a good thing, according to Jay Goodrich, perhaps my favorite columnist (blogger?) at Outdoor Photographer magazine.
Goodrich recently suggested:

Put it to RestYep. Give it all up. I am not saying for ever. Nor am I saying to sell any of that precious camera gear you own. Take a break. Walk away. Free your mind from it for a while. Tune your bike. Build a rocking chair. Read a novel. Hell, write one. Sometimes the very act of creation is stifled by over thinking and obsession.When you do give it up for a bit all that knowledge you once had will come storming back with one exception…You will forget all of your bad habits. You will look at your surroundings differently. And hopefully you will begin to create with the eyes of your six-year-old child.

Goodrich also included suggestions for the need to refresh one’s approach to photography:

Shoot Something Different“It all became very clear to me sitting out there today, that every decision I’ve ever made in my entire life has been wrong. My life is the complete opposite of everything I want it to be…If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.” – Dialog between George & Jerry in SeinfeldHow simple is that. If you keep producing photos of bland sunsets, maybe you should try shooting a portrait or two. Or if your heart is just completely into sunsets, maybe you should try shooting at different vantage points for those sunsets. Or maybe go to a new location to shoot sunsets. Change it up, do something crazy, try something new.One thing you should NEVER do, is shoot anything for money. Don’t try to become a nature or adventure photographer and shoot weddings to pay your bills. Shoot weddings because you love it. Shoot weddings because you get to experience and highlight a very special day for two people. Don’t shoot weddings because you need the money; the second you fall into the money trap you are done. Your photos WILL suck. Shoot what you love with passion and it will all work out in the end.Now, on the other hand, if you decide that trying to shoot a wedding because you are struggling elsewhere may help you, then by all means go full throttle in that direction.

These comments, of course, energized my frequent discomfort at taking hundreds, probably thousands ,of photos at Mill Creek, Bennington Lake, McNary National Wildlife Refuge sites at Umatilla, Wallula and Burbank, my most frequented dog-walking sites.
Well, at least I don’t shoot the same things over and over to make money. I claim simpler, if vastly less profitable, excuses: carrying a camera gives me something to do while walking Nora the Schnauzer, and I do enjoy the shooting process, always with the potential of capturing a perfectly exposed image.
Walking Nora happens nearly every day. Capturing a perfect image happens less often.
Offhand I can’t count our number of photo outings made in December and January (since my last entry here) and already this month. Looking at my files, however (and at my posts at www.tripper.smugmug.com) I accumulated the usual number of images. I did not write about them, perhaps because few, if any, new images resulted.

Nevertheless, let me present a few.

At below McNary Dam at Umatilla:

At rhe MNWR at Burbank and Ice Harbor:

At Bennington Lake:

And, finally, at Mill Creek:

As this entry downloads onto the www.outripper.blogspot.com site, the light through the window seems much brighter.
And Nora aims her walk-time look at me.
So, who knows. We may see something new at Mill Creek, like a moose, a bear or a wolf, If not I may at least capture a nearly perfect exposure of a Great Blue Heron or Common Merganser launching.
And Nora will enjoy the outing.

About Me

Now retired, I once spent several hours each week, sometimes several days, traveling with Darlene and Nora the Schnauzer (since Sadie the Dalmatian died) in the outdoors of the Pacific Northwest, often with a fly rod and/or a backpack and always with a camera, to research columns for the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin . See photos at www.tripper.smugmug.com.